How to create “Head Candy” sounds in Ableton

So you’ve put together a basic song arrangement in Ableton or your DAW of choice, stretching out your 16 bar loop to something more songlike but you’ve run into a snag.

Your song sounds repetitive, empty, boring…

No matter how cool that initial loop sounds, turning it into a song that keeps your interest is a different animal altogether.

So how do we add interest to a track? Head candy is my solution.

I like to add incidental 1 shot sounds that bounce around your head in unpredictable ways so that the mind can’t lock in to one specific pattern. This keeps your brain from getting bored when listening to repetitive dance music.

In the video below, I explain my approach to creating this head candy:

Happy music making,

Jason

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1 Comment

Dan Lenz
on May 7, 2014 at 6:01 pm

Thanks Jason, very informative. I have casually played keyboards off and on for many years and this is my first try at creating in a DAW. I am doing a lot of listening as most of the EDM styles I am not familiar with. I am a noob and have no idea yet how to apply these tips in production but they are helping me picture how this music is created. I am guilty of a pre-conceived notion that you just plop some samples in a DAW and out comes some music. I am rapidly realizing you need the creativity of an artist and a lot of technical wizardry to create something memorable. I am in awe of what that entails.
BTW seems that hearing strange sounds in your head can be a good thing for creativity!